The Peasants' War. A media event

The Peasants' War was the focus of the last "Saturdays at 12" event in 2025, with Prof. Dr. Thomas Kaufmann (University of Göttingen) as a guest. He received the Leibniz Prize in 2020. He is one of the most profound experts on the era of the Reformation and the early modern period. His research and publications on the history of the Reformation, Martin Luther, the Anabaptists and the media revolution that fundamentally changed the social, cultural and political world 500 years ago are considered groundbreaking. Thomas Kaufmann is also known from the three-part "Terra X" television series "The Great Beginning - 500 Years of Reformation", which he accompanied as an expert consultant, as well as from the 20-episode television production "The Germans" by "Terra X".

In Siegen, Kaufmann had his non-fiction book "Der Bauernkrieg. A media event" with him.

The event kicked off with the song "Wir sind Geyers schwarzer Haufen", which was used as a political battle song both by the National Socialists and later in the GDR. It originated in the 1920s from the ranks of the Bündische Jugend. Kaufmann: "It has little to do with the Peasants' War itself."

Interest in the Peasants' War has remained intact for over 500 years, not least because it is "controversially remembered", even in the two German states that existed until 1989. Shortly before the collapse of the GDR, a huge Peasants' War panorama was opened in Bad Frankenhausen. It commemorates the battle of May 15, 1525, in which the peasants were massacred and the preacher Thomas Müntzer was captured and then executed in Mühlhausen on May 27, 1525. The panorama stands not far from the Kyffhäuser, where, according to legend, Frederick Barbarossa sleeps. Kaufmann: "Diffuse streams of history flow together in the memory of the Peasants' War."

Friedrich Engels interpreted the Peasants' War as the "German Revolution of 1525". This failed for similar reasons to the revolution of 1848, namely because the bourgeoisie left the peasants and now the proletariat to their own devices and betrayed them. Engels attributed a prominent socio-historical role above all to Müntzer and the Thuringian peasant uprising. Engels saw Luther as the advocate of the bourgeois-aristocratic camp. Engels' view of the Peasants' War was formative for the historiography of the GDR, whereby, according to Kaufmann, the insurgents did not see themselves as "German" in the sense of a nationalist narrative.

Kaufmann's approach to the Peasants' War is different. "I think the Peasants' War was initiated by the media." He continues: "It was the first major military event in European history to be flanked by the media". So-called prognostications played a role from around 1500. Peasant uprisings and revolts were predicted for 1524 on the basis of celestial constellations. Thomas More's "Utopia" was published in 1516. The Reformatio Sigismundi assumed that no Christian should be a serf. The most effective publication of the Peasants' War was the "Twelve Articles", for which Protestant citizens of Memmingen were responsible. They were published in the printing metropolis of Augsburg. The aim was to improve the social and economic situation of the peasants. The Bible served as the basis for the arguments. The Memminger Bundesordnung is a competing printed work that appeared in two printed versions and, not least, sets out how to deal with conflict situations.

In the 19th century, according to Kaufmann, historiography tried to make sense of the Peasants' War. It was fundamental that "nobles and townspeople talked about peasants". In the course of the political claiming of the Peasants' War, 'heroes' were now created. Thomas Müntzer is the only 'hero' of the Peasants' War who owes his status to contemporary journalistic attention. This was primarily due to the scathing polemics of Martin Luther and his followers. Engels' view turned Müntzer into a hero of communist ideals.